The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-08

When four days dead, as the legend reads,
He arose to humanity's life and needs;
From sleep of the dust he strangely woke,
And thus to his brother, the king, he spoke:
81 have been to paradise, oh, my king
And there saw by the gates of gold,
palace finer than tongue has told;
Its walls and towers are lifted high
In beautiful grace to the bending sky,
Its glories there in that radiant place
Shone forth like a smile from the dear Lords
face;
An angel said il was builded there
BY the good st, Thomas, with love and care,
For our felow-men, and that it should be
Thy palace of peace through eternity" .-.
The king this vision pondered well,
Till he took st. Thomas from dungeon cell
And said: "Oh, Builder he most is wise,
Who huideth ever for paradise"
After this, st. Thomas became very popu-
lar. All the kings believed in him and re-
cognized him as true saint; and he jour
neyed protected by the scepter and under
the royal white umbrella of King Meo Deus,
with band Of music and ii procession, to
the Madras country, where he said good-by
to all proud pomp, found comfortable cave
in which he long lived quietly and plainly,
and finally was slain.
The dark Indian patre, man of keen face
and polished manners clothed in the eccle-
siastical gown of the Roman church, at the
close of the narration again candidly assured
me that it was wholly traditional; that in
the lapse of ages and the mutations of gov
eminent and circumstances no point of the
story could be proved, and | venture to say
that Doubling Thomas himself would be the
last to believe it.
1t belongs only to the critical analyzer OF
time-eaten manuscripts and complicated lie
gends to interfere with the regular contin-
uity of a story and the consistency of de
tails.
But the fact is that modern Christian mis-
sonaries the earliest being the Portuguese,
in A. ID. 1900, found the knowledge ana wor-
ship of Christ no new thing in India; and
that up to the last ten years the remnants of
the ancient Syrian church, had more na-
tive adherents than all the Protestant scots
in Hindustan put together.
At the beginning of the Christian era
Buddhistic philosophy then supreme in
Southern India, did not oppose the introduc-
ton of religion whose characteristics were
humanity and lfsacritice; while north of
the Himalayas Christianity and Buddhism
a thousand years were side by side and inter
laced. From the fifth to the fifteenth cen
fury they formed the two intelligent relg
ions of Central Asia.
whole subject of early Christianity, from
Cyprus to China, has been treated with ex
haustive learning in Col. Yule's ''Kathay and
the Way Thither," published by the Hak-
luyt society in 1866.
This makes plain why in Toxic, Japan, the
temple worship, and why near Chinese Can
ton a monasterial affairs establishment re.
minded me of the Roman Catholic churches
in the United North American States
Mesopotamia and Syria, in early Chris
tian times, recruited with missionaries the
sometimes hard-pushed, priestless, ami desc
late Indian church. A mixed worship,
Christian, Saracen, and Hindu, has been
offered at st. Thomas mount and Little
mount, both being ancient "high places. "
Only for certain lowly and devoted ones
those isolated hill-shrines on the Madrasian
plain, retaining the Christian name, have
supported faith in the apostle of India,
and Christian pilgrims believe that the mag
niticent waves of the Indian ocean make a
mighty requiem by his grave.
ANNA BsrLARD.